INTELLIGENCE: Missing the Arabs' War Signals

The early battlefield reports streaming
from the fronts into the military headquarters in Egypt and Syria
seemed too good to be true: light Israeli resistance at the Suez Canal
and in the Golan Heights; Israeli reserves not mobilized; Israel's
general population relaxed and praying in the synagogues. Yet the
reports were accurate. The Arabs had accomplished what conventional
wisdom had long insisted was nearly impossible  a surprise attack on
Israel.

The Arab onslaught, to be sure, was no Pearl Harbor. Israel's
intelligence agents alerted the government several days before the...